Roche Using Halozyme Drug Delivery Technology

San Diego-based Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HALO)
received some good news today. Its partner Roche announced plans to
invest $182 million in two European factories that will produce a
device designed to deliver a drug formulated with Halozyme’s enzyme
technology.

The Roche drug is trastuzumab (Herceptin), which is used to
treat women with an aggressive form of breast cancer that
overproduces a protein called HER2. The drug, which had 2009 sales
of about $4.8 billion, is currently administered by infusion in a
hospital.

Halozyme’s technology would allow trastuzumab to be
administered by subcutaneous injection. This means patients could
receive the drug in a doctor’s office or even self-administer the
anti-cancer drug at home. Roche says it takes five minutes to
administer an injection compared to 60 minutes for an
infusion.